


Of Skin and Strawberries

by liveonthesun



Category: Pushing Daisies
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-04-11
Updated: 2008-04-11
Packaged: 2017-10-23 15:53:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 389
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/252133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liveonthesun/pseuds/liveonthesun
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He wonders if she would agree to always leave her half-eaten strawberries for him to finish.  It’s the closest he’ll ever get to actually putting his mouth against her.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Of Skin and Strawberries

There’s a strawberry with a bite taken out of it sitting on the kitchen counter.

He doesn’t know how long it’s been there or why it was just left to sit, but he knows who left it, and so he picks it up and pops it into his mouth.

It’s perfect. Just the right texture, just the right ripeness, just the right balance of sweet and tart, just the right about of juice filling his mouth as he bites into it, and just the right about of joy and wonder that a strawberry should hold.

And there’s another flavor in there, one that he’s never tasted in a strawberry before. One that could only possibly be her. The flavor of herself she left behind.

He wouldn’t know, not for sure, because he’s never tasted her before. He holds her cautiously and kisses plastic and touches cloth and pretends like it’s actually her skin against his.

But it never is, and it never will be, and try as he might to forget this, it’s always there in the back of his mind.

He always imagined she would taste like strawberries, but he never imagined a strawberry tasting like her. He wonders if she would agree to always leave her half-eaten strawberries for him to finish. It’s the closest he’ll ever get to actually putting his mouth against her.

These thoughts fill his head late at night, and he can’t help but imagine that it’s her hands and not his own that are moving down his body, down down down until he’s holding his breath and clutching the sheets and doing everything in his power to keep from crying out and waking her up.

He knows she does the same when she thinks he’s asleep. There will be subtle changes in the noises of the room. The sound of her sheets moving against her comforter will fill the air and then her breathing will quicken until she lets out one long breath of contentment.

On these nights he can’t help but be angered by the fact that these are nights they should be sharing, not keeping to themselves in separate beds across the room from each other.

But this is how it has to be. They’ll keep pretending in the night, focusing on what should be, and never knowing what could.


End file.
